Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.3

102 / 164

| |
sit around talking about airplanes, aviation or any other
subject they find interesting. The Mount Pleasant Regional
Airport hosts the Breakfast Club once a year, in November.
McCurdy refers to such events as fly-ins, but he said
ECPA members also enjoy a few fly-outs as well.
“A bunch of us will get in our planes and fly to Jekyll
Island, Georgia,” he explained. “There’s a really nice hotel
there with an unbelievable brunch. Anywhere from five or
six to 10 or 12 of us will go, some in their own planes and
some who hitch rides with others.”
Last year, ECPA members participated in a poker run,
flying into six different airports, each time picking up one
playing card. The pilot who returns to the starting airport
with the best poker hand wins.
McCurdy, an Isle of Palms policeman at the time, started
flying after Hurricane Hugo swept across the Carolina
coast in 1989, mostly to take his mind off the devastation
wrought by the large and violent storm.
“I needed therapy so I started flying,” he said.
Waters, now 75, has been flying since he was 16.
“I love the mechanics of aviation. It’s only you and God.
It’s peaceful, away from life’s issues. People drive and talk on
the phone. When you are flying, all you are doing is flying.”
Waters flies his bright yellow Varga for fun, but he
also owns a Comanche that he uses when he leaves the
Mount Pleasant area. He sometimes travels on business as
a member of the board of the General George Patton Mu-
seum and Center of Leadership in Fort Knox, Kentucky,
and he also serves on the board of Roper Hospital and is
District 1 commissioner for the South Carolina Aeronau-
tics Commission.
Like many other members of the East Cooper Pilots
Association, Tommy Teasley can claim a connection to the
area’s aviation history. His 1947 Piper Club Special was the
property of the late Woody Faison, whose name graces the
road from Highway 17 to the airport. Teasley obviously en-
joys relating a story about the aviation legend. Faison, who
passed on to that great runway in the sky shortly before his
90th birthday, was still teaching pilots to fly at the age of
89. On one occasion, his plane, with a student aboard, lost
an engine, so he calmly landed it on the beach at Dewees
Island.
Why does Teasley, 68, continue to fly?
“I just love it. I love the history of airplanes and the his-
tory of aviation,” he explained, adding that “I’ll keep flying
until I’m 100.”